Military and security force motor vehicles are often armored to protect occupants from bullets, bombs and other threats, but armoring creates doors often weighing as much as 1000 pounds, making manually opening the door difficult or impossible when the vehicle is positioned on a sloped or other non horizontal surface. Also, attachments mounted to the outside of the doors create a problem where in a typical four door vehicle, having two doors per side, when the rear door is opened at a particular angle, the front door cannot open fully because the attachment protrudes into the path of the front door, blocking the front door from opening fully.
Thus, it would be advantageous to have a motorized door opener that automatically opens and closes the doors of a vehicle, but that can also sense the position of all the doors so that the opener does not damage any of the doors while the opener is in operation. Additionally, it would be advantageous for the motorized door opener to be able to use existing door hinges, negating the need to extensively modify or redesign the door itself. It would be further advantageous to have a door opener that does not itself protrude into the door opening, thus maximizing the entry/exit space for passengers and their equipment.